Emptied Mediterranean – Sharks Nearly Gone

Several ecologically-important shark populations in the Mediterranean Sea have completely collapsed, according to a new study, with numbers of five species now more than 96 percent below what existed two centuries ago.

“This loss of top predators could hold serious implications for the entire marine ecosystem, greatly affecting food webs throughout this region,” said the lead author of the study, Francesco Ferretti, a doctoral student in marine biology at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia.

Particularly troubling, the researchers said, were patterns indicating a lack of mature females, which are essential if populations are to recover even with new conservation measures. “Because sharks are long-lived and slow to mature, they need fully-grown females to keep their populations reproductively healthy,” said Heike Lotze, a study author who is also at Dalhousie.

The study is scheduled for publication in the journal Conservation Biology and was posted online on Wednesday at lenfestocean.org by the Lenfest Ocean Program, a private group in Washington that paid for the research.

A great white shark killed in Italy before the Mediterranean’s sharks were depleted. (Annamaria Mariotti, Camogli (GE) Italy)

Sharks take years to reach sexual maturity and, unlike most other fishes, produce small numbers of young, making them particularly vulnerable to overfishing. Populations have declined worldwide, but experts say the Mediterranean, bordered by many countries with variegated rules and fished intensively for centuries, has seen bigger losses of sharks and other large predatory fish, including tuna.

The decline was revealed by sifting decades of catch records and other scattered sources of data, which showed that — over time — the Mediterranean ecosystem has been utterly transformed. With top-tier predators removed, the populations of other fish and invertebrates shift in unpredictable ways.

The study focused on five species for which there were sufficient records to chart a long-term trend — hammerhead, blue, and thresher sharks and two types of mackerel sharks. But similar declines are presumed to have occurred in many other species.

A recent ban on fishing in deep waters (more than 1,000 meters) and on cutting off shark fins, a delicacy in China, could help, but much more enforcement of laws is needed, the conservation union said.

All of this means that the scene in this video clip from Medsharks.org will be ever rarer without some big changes:

The sharks, tunas, sturgeons, sea turtles, and so many other marine denizens of old are a pale shadow of what prevailed in the pre-humanized seas. In a world heading toward 9 billion people, it remains unclear how current populations can be sustained, let alone restored.

Did God really create humans? Why would He create something to destroy all His other creations, including Earth? Did the Matrix have it right? Are humans a virus that is killing the planet? Does someone have a vaccine?

Andy, why are you the only one from whom we’re hearing so much of this coverage? It’s testimony to your courage, pursuit of truth and balanced reporting for sure, but what is going on with the rest of the media?
When I turn on the news to hear for the nineteen millionth time, will Hillary be Obama’s running mate, I think, my God, this is never going to end. From 6 in the morning until 9 at night, if I flip the station to catch up, it’s the same old, same old, same old, same old. What ELSE is happening in the world. I’m a Democrat but the hell with paying off Clinton’s campaign debt, that obscene 20 million dollars could be spent in so many more productive areas for the well being of human and non human progress.
I have nothing new or original to express for the sorrow, horror, outrage, and utter disgust I feel every single time I read a story like this. Most sorrowful to me is how it feels so helpless and too late. Laurie Doughtery, yesterday you expressed your disappointment in reading the despair so many poster’s express. With the greatest respect for you and your hard work, it is near impossible not to feel despair after this week’s list of articles pertaining to our declining biodiversity. Certainly no one should give up, but the growing sinkhole in my heart isn’t getting refueled with any hope after each one of these stories.
This deserves to be front page, breaking news status. This affects all of us on every level.
I have NEVER subscribed to any religious, fundamentalist interpretation of the world ending. But boy oh boy, I’ve found myself migrating toward that thought on occasion wondering just what in God’s name is happening.
As all these stories are: very, very, very sad and regretful. That monument Maya Lin is building for extinct species (thank you Laurie D. for the link) appears to have no shortage of material for her tribute.
Elizabeth Tjader
[ANDY REVKIN says: All I can suggest is that you recruit more people to track Dot Earth. If everyone who comes here regularly found one more person to come here regularly, we’d have quite the ensemble. Just so you’re aware, Dot Earth currently is visited by about 200,000 unique sets of eyeballs a month or thereabouts.]

A small minority fringe says that despite all evidence, we can have infinite substitutions for everything (and despite our living on a sphere of finite dimension) and everything will be just ducky.

We’ll figger it out, IOW, just go ahead and keep doing what we’re doing, don’t change – see, because even though there’s no evidence we’ve figured it out to this point, we will in the future!! *Heart!!!!!!!*

And this fringe insists we should listen to them. Presumably their crack scientists are working on a robot or other technological replacement for sharks and other animals down the trophic cascade as we speak. Privatizing the commons doesn’t work in simulations, either, as fish can swim.

Sooner than later, there will be absolutely nothing left in the oceans. Who will want to swim in the mediterranean when it is chock full of jellyfishes. Maybe someone will come up with the idea of peanutbutter and jellyfish sandwiches. Too bad there are dollar signs on everything. That picture above with all those dead sharks is very sad. I know someone will say WE have to eat, but at what cost to the planet? We are doomed, too many humans on the loose.

Another sad example of humans raping the planet that (temporarily) sustains us. Unfortunately, it is more than just the tragedy of the commons. That would suggest that propertization is the solution. But history has demonstrated that property is not a panacea for greed, shortsightedness, and unethical behavior.

In the meantime, the companies that produce the ships, gigantic fishing nets and other equipment that is used to destroy the earth are not held accountable for their actions. Here is a request that the New York Times and other media outlets begin to track down these “innocent” businessmen and hold them accountable for their contribution to the world’s devestation. It is time we held everyone personally responsible for their actions. We should no longer allow the unseen corporate directors who profit from destructive practices to get away with their behavior. They should be taken to task legally and in the court of public opinion.

When your teenagers do really dumb (foolish) things you get mad and chastise them. You wonder if they will ever grow up and become responsible adults. Right?

Humanity is in its teenage phase as a species. Sometimes teenagers can do a lot of damage before they finally get it. So too, we are doing a lot of damage to the planet, and it hurts.

But we don’t give up on our teenagers because we know they will grow out of it. Similarly humans need to evolve a higher capacity for sapience, for wisdom, for judgment. It is that evolution that needs to take place before humans are able to stop being destructive. It can happen.

I prefer the analogy of humans with immature teenagers rather than humans as cancers. There are no guarantees that humans will evolve out of our current low capacity for good judgment (wisdom). We could destroy ourselves through thoughtlessness just like some teenagers have fatal car crashes from behaving foolishly. There are no certainties. But if we ever do grow up as a new species there is an awful lot of good achievements that we could carry forth into a better world – perhaps a hundred, thousand years from now.

Elizabeth:
It is really sad to be reading about so many misanthropic things.
After sending an article to my theater about Chico Mendez we did a show that toured. During the first performance G-d sent a white sheet of rain as we were approaching the final scene that had a cross to honor Chico Mendez and give him a place with Jesus as one whose life was lost because he really cared.
A year or two later I sent an article, maybe in the early 90’s or late 80’s, about the over fishing of sharks. I took it seriously though expected the theater to not take it on and that was a shame.
There was a documentary about Japanese shark fishing in the Caribbean and it showed how they were just cutting off the fins and throwing the carcasses into the water right in port with no one stopping them even though it was illegal.
Now this. I knew that Mediterranean tuna was in big trouble but didn’t realize the shark population was being so decimated. The power of the press is one thing but having real life get a grip is another.
[ANDY REVKIN asks: Was that play/performance about Chico in Texas? I believe I heard about it. The Burning Season, my book on Mendes and the Amazon, was first published in 1990 and I recall receiving a note from someone writing a play (in Texas, quite sure.]

Humans on the individual level can see what is going on, can make choices that will aim at effecting positive changes in terms of what is happening with our environment. Humans at the societal/national level can cooperatively engage in the making of laws and other actions that will press these changes even further. My fear is that humans at the species level are driven by motivations which are completely unconcerned with the status of our natural environment, and that there is nothing we can do to change that fact. I think that at some point in the recent past (a few centuries ago, perhaps more recently than that) we hit a level of population that pushed us into this new era of extreme stress on our environment, and all of our actions and their consequences have been pretty much a foregone conclusion since then. (This is my fear, but I don’t claim to be omnipotent, and I surely hope that I’m wrong!)

The bulk of humanity wages a daily struggle for survival – where is the plan to address that? Those who think we can fix our environment and not deal with poverty are living in a dreamland.

Sharks are a good example of overhunting consequences, and not only to the shark, of course. Top predators are needed to keep their prey healthy. We need to start teaching this more to our children in school.

#4, IfDarwinIsRight, I don’t know if God created humans or not. Evolution has been happening for a long time, but it can’t explain the big bang. Nothing can’t interact with nothing, with no spacial coordinates to do so in, and make the universe and everything in it. I’m guessing that God, if God exists and created the universe and everything in it, didn’t create humans to dispose of the rest of creation. We have free will, and, if God created us, he/she gave us free will. We can use free will to ignore the problems around us, to exaggerate the problems around us, or to work on the things that make sense to us right now. If humans are a virus, they are a very odd virus. Humans routinely pull in opposite directions, which is not very effective from a viral perspective.

Mentioned Mediterranean, it was my dream once to visit when I was young child. So many novels are about it. It give people imagenation of full of sunshine, full of marine creatures, especially shark is so delicious. The countries around Mediterranean Itay, Spain and so on, because of Mediterranean full of sunshine, full of fish, let people enjoy these nature bless, are become famous. From anceint around Mediterranean people live with it, depend on it, Mediterranean fish support their life. Several years ago, I finnally visited Spain and viewed Mediterranean, ate Mediterranean fish. I was very enjoyed my Spain trap. As Mediterranean loss it’s fish products,especailly shark, it will loss so many hope and fascinate for Mediterranean people and people around world. Overpopulation have to overfish to satisfy people’s stomach, make today’s result. I wonder if we just say conservation, just control people overfish, does it work? People have to eat, they need fish to live. Small population can balance get and reproduction, but now we are heading toward 9 billion population, even now 6.7 billion are happening food, fish sortage, untill 9 billion how can people to live? How can we go sustainable way. Maybe everyday confliction of taking food,fish will happen everywhere. In order to avoid it and in order to keep Mediterranean’s fascinate we have to control our population. Otherwise world resource will disappoint one by one, untill people can have chance to live at Danny Bloom’s polar city, will no food to support them.

The funny thing is, everyone of us know what’s right and what’s wrong, but greed causes us to turn a blind eye to doing whats right. I’m sure there are inventions and technologies that never saw the light of day because they would threaten to change the way the rich and powerful stay rich and powerful. As the population increases and oil runs low and food supplies dwindle, I’m sure that we’ll still carry on the same way until the machine that we’ve created grinds to a halt. Only then will people realize that we had the answer all along. With all that we know about solar power, we should be able to build a house that uses solar and wind generated electric as a main source of power,it should have been available long ago. Just like you can go to a store to buy a washer and dryer for your house, why can’t we buy pre engineered power systems using wind and solar in combination for your home? It should be common place, but it isn’t. Small companies offer some solar equipment(BIG$$)and wind power is starting to draw interest, but we’ve known about this stuff for years. But it’s easier to throw money at the oil gas and electric companies and flip a switch or turn a key.

Fishing is a binger’s occupation. Work is a binge without rest at sea, on the gear or the boat when not fishing or processing fish. Shore leave is binge too, usually a bender. The fishery winds up as depleted as a druggie’s stash, stripping it bare is just a larger scale binge.

Andy:
Just saw your note on my comment.
I worked with the Bread and Puppet Theater that is home based in Glover, Vermont and has had many occasions in NYC. The article I saw was in the Philadelphia Inquire Sunday magazine and that must have been about 1990 or when Chico Mendez was killed. I remember there was a movie made about him also.
The Puppet Theater does life size shows and when on tour includes volunteers. I met up with the tour at a college in Baltimore. It toured at a number of colleges and other places.
We also took on the issue of the James Bay Project Phase II after being on Times Square on an Earth Day with Mayor Dinkins presiding. He gave a good speech concerning Brazil and the destruction of the rain-forest. Then introduced an Indian from Northern Quebec who was concerned with the intention of the G8 to go ahead with this project that would have flooded forested land the size of New York State, Massachusetts, and Connecticut combined. They were trying to get the New England States to buy the electric.
At our show in Vermont the Honorable Madeline Kunin came and afterward I think she went to Mario Cuomo and they decided to cancel contracts to buy the electricity and the project fell through.
Don’t know about Texas but interesting that you wrote a book about Chico Mendez. Just sent an article to the farm about a nun who was recently murdered in Brazil trying to stop more logging. Some things never change.
People have known that killing too many sharks was bad for a long time but they keep doing it. When the passenger pigeon became extinct the excuse was “there were so many of them that we didn’t think they could all be killed” or something like that and that was about 1904.

I think this needs to be repeated. I did not write this. Some bloke over at peak oil did. We need to get used to this.How the future will unfold:

“Imagine a beautiful oil painting left out in the elements.

Baked in 100 degree days, frozen by cold wet nights, drenched in rain,
unattended by the loving hands a curator. Everything looks fine for a
while — then checking begins to appear in the smooth surface, mold
begins to grow in the cracks and they widen, flakes of paint begin to
drift from the canvas. So after a decade or two it is unrecognizable
as a work of art. It’s just a rotted old piece of wood and canvas.

George Mobus (#11): “I prefer the analogy of humans with immature teenagers rather than humans as cancers.”

Me too. :-)

But I’ve got this Sitting Bull complex. You know: all thise things the red indians had to say about us white folks, as concerned our most basic lack of connectedness with Mother Nature. And the fact that the white man came in such big numbers! Yes, the red indian was easily outnumbered and had no place to go. Today, in a sense, one could call the North American red indian a species gone virtually extinct.

As for the analogy of immature teenagers: here’s another thing I want to take note of: the simple fact that, only a few decades ago, there was no such thing as a 37-year-old boy. I hear about it all the time. How people who are close to or even above the age of forty get to call themselves boys and girls. What is happening here? I think we are producing a rock’n’roll teenage cult culture in which people are allowed to remain like youngsters for as long as they goddamn please. We’ve come up with a culture in which people are expected to act like teenagers and be forever young, and if you can’t at least act as if you are going to remain forever young, you are probably going to be seen as some kind of loser.

Being forever young is all about indifference. It is all about innosence. It is all about grabbbing a beer and shouting: “Whatever will be, will be.” It is all about minding your own business while you allow the ecosystems of this planet to fare-a-well at its own chosen speed. It is all about not giving a toss about the atmosphere of this planet, but party on for as long as one possibly can. And feel a bit like Alice in Wonderland whenever you come to think about it. But grab another beer in the end. No worries.

It’s a question of empathy, I guess. Teenagers are supposed to be a little more happy-go-lucky than that, now aren’t they? I mean: empathy! In a world that is slowly but certainly going down the drains (well, so it seems)! Empathy is like a curse. It’s not good for you. You’ll go sad and depressed, and that’s not funky. Uh.

For your information: I do not think of myself as forever young. I’m a 37-year-old octogenarian, so to speak: feeling terribly old. And I think: if it is social evolution we’re talking about here, I’m definitely on the losing side. It is the youngster 40-year-olds who are deciding the direction here, and setting the speed. I’m just in for one hell of a ride, coming to terms with all these devastating pieces of information that is being coverend on this DotEarth Blog. I mean: rising levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. I mean: species going extinct as the casualties required by the rapid rise of increasingly effective human populations. I mean: tropical rainforests being chopped down faster and faster, dwindling fish resources, and the Arctic summer ice cap melting away. I mean: all these oh so old realms of interest: sad things that proper teenage 40-year-olds do not care to think about. I mean: honestly! It’s party time, and I don’t know: where’s the party?

The Amerinds were quite successful at keeping Europeans very close to their ships until their numbers were greatly reduced by disease. The Pilgrims at Plymouth found their skeletons all over the landscape.

George Mobus touched upon “the analogy of humans with immature teenagers rather than humans as cancers.” I also like the mean machine analogy. I mean: whole cultures of humans that are acting like integral parts of very destructive forces of steel wheels. Human beings functioning like slaves of a catastrophe prone global system: all human beings being locked up inside this high-speed and fast-forward time machine in which they function solely as the instruments of productivity. Ever faster. Evermore effective. Evermore productive. Evermore destructive. And growing. 6.7 billion integral parts of the speed-loving modern hard-wired production system around today: 9 billion specimens of steel wheel addicted slaves of the same system expected to be around tomorrow: it’s only a question of time, and time, I say, is the most relative of all forces at work on the human soul. Time’s up. Stop the machine, right now: we need a time-out.

Not that it’s going to happen. Oh no. Because the calls are being shot by the anti-human inner parts of the mean machine. It’s in need of fuel, that’s all. There will always be people around to fill it up. It’s their frecking job, stupid! It may be a dirty job, of course, but there are millions of people doing the same thing all over the planet every day … don’t worry …

I can easily see that I am being empathic here. I am in favour of understanding human life as this natural, spiritual, social experience as it is. It is not all about culture.

Shit happens, and it happens when it happens. The mean machine doesn’t give a damn about that. – It has no heart. It’s only protecting itself against all possible forms of change. It’s the birth right of the mean machine, and all humans beware! You’re worthless slaves of a system which is made out to protect the mean machine from ugly change wanting voices like my own.

… tongue-tied and twisted: just an Earth-bound misfit, I …

I cannot be talked to and I am completely not able to make any oral sense. I can write, that’s all. I am 100 percent conscious of the fact that talking about any of this shit is frankly too anti-social to be done. I mean: thinking about all the factory work that is being done around the world, by such a lot of people, and knowing what it does to the natural world on which we all depend, not only in the short term but in the long run as well (time is relative). It sends the chills down the bones of my backside, that’s all.

Rant over. Let me just refer to Orwell and Kafka again: they’re that important. I mean: if you do not understand that we are grappling with whole world systems gone awry…?!

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By 2050 or so, the human population is expected to pass nine billion. Those billions will be seeking food, water and other resources on a planet where humans are already shaping climate and the web of life. Dot Earth was created by Andrew Revkin in October 2007 -- in part with support from a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship -- to explore ways to balance human needs and the planet's limits.